Voice commands

Firstly I admit to not having any idea if this could work.
But, is it possible to have voice commands for an mp3 player, either for winamp or one of the many dos players? Simple commands like, "next track", "mute", "track 13"
"song Artist Title"
Ive a sad feeling this would be to hard to do but would be really smart if possible. Also you wouldn't need any keypad, just a simple microphone would be all you'd need for input.

There are a number of third-party programs that do voice commands reasonably well. None for DOS, as far as I know, but several Windows ones. The challenge lies in background noise. For one, you'll be listening to music, which will contribute to background noise, and for another thing, you're going to be in the vehicle which adds yet more noise. If you know enough about audio programming, you could write a relatively simple algorithm that would filter the outgoing audio out of the incoming signal, and then it's just a matter of noise reduction. A wind guard for the microphone would help, and it would probably help if you attached the microphone to your collar or something (if you got a small newscast-type mic). The logistics of it are kind of complicated, but it's a great concept. Another great advantage to this is that your computer could take dictation while you commute. You could get a lot of writing done during rush hour.

I had also been thinking about controling Winamp with voice control. I also too have to admit that I don't have a clue how it could work. The background noise being a major problem. But then the other day I saw on 'Top Gear' a new Rover (very pricy) with voice controls for the heater, radio, cd player, etc. So perhaps it can be done?
Anyone any ideas?

If you have bought a SB live, It comes with a program called Prody Parrot which is basically a Voice Activation program. You can probably configure it for Winamp.
I have used it a bit, It takes about three try's to start a program.

I've tried using a program called incube which is a voice controlled launcher/macro executor. I have it opening winamp and skipping back and forth through songs. It works pretty well in a silent room, but only about 50% of the time with Primus cranked in the same room. I found it helps by recording your voice while the music is playing, but the accuracy rate was not good enough for me to take it out on a test drive especially when you take into account wind and road noise. I think the best bet would be some type of over the ear mic, but that would be a pain to use.

I have never really thought it'd be possible to do until I saw this damn program on the TV. This guy was talking away telling us about this new car and then would say things like 'tempreture 20 degrees' or 'radio on' and the car confirmed to him through voice!
There was no sign of a mic anywhere. They must have found some way of excluding all the background noise?
Well it was just a thought.
Gonna check out the Rover page, see if I can find any info, you never know.

Like I mentioned before, it's not too difficult (from a they-already-know-a-lot-about-sound-processing point of view) to filter out background noise if you know what exactly that background noise sounds like. You just have two microphones. One of the mics picks up the voice (along with the background noise). The other mic is positioned so it hears mostly the noise (and not much voice). Then the second signal (the noise) is subtracted from the first (the voice and noise), and all that's left is the voice. Of course, this would be a ***** unless you were already quite experienced with sound processing software.. but quite easy for companies like this.

On an unrelated note, a lot of older luxury cars had a built-in dictaphone as an option, and one even had a phonograph under the dash. I haven't a clue how they kept that thing from skipping.

I've been planning to use voice recognition in my car for a long time now. Andrea electronics has developed a mic array using not two, but four mics and a digital signal processor. They have one made for the Clarion AutoPC, and the regular USB PC model should be out very soon. It actually mounts on to your sun visor.